United States of Torturedom

'Ghost Plane', the recent book by freelance journalist and former London Times  reporter, Stephen Grey  details his use of plane spotters to trace the paths of nominally secret CIA flights, on which terror suspects were spirited to foreign prisions for interrogation under torture.  Thankfully, the CIA was blessedly incompetent in covering its own bloody tracks,

and failed to use simple and legal means to suppress the publication of flight plans, by means of which the various sordid stories could be (and were in fact) pieced together.

Two excellent reviews of 'Ghost Plane' have recently appeared in contrarian journals unfortunately not much frequented by denizens of this site:  The New York Review of Books and The London Review of Books.  The NY Review article also covers (.pdf) The commission in Inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer (and suspected terrorist) of Syrian origin, who, under the slenderest of pretenses, was kidnapped while changing planes in New York City, rendered to Syria, and held in solitary confinement and tortured for a year.  The NY R(eview) account of his confinement is strictly for the strong of stomach.

The NYR story also emphasizes the degree to which 'extraordinary rendition' marks a break with past US policy:

Here Grey accepts, in part, the argument of the Bush administration that its policy follows that of its predecessors.  But Grey also goes on to show how the Bush administration has gone much further than any previous administration. (Emphasis added.)

Furthermore, it does a good job of parsing Secretary Rice's legalistic double talk about  rendition and torture:

...Secretary Rice said "The United States does not transport ... detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture."  This seemed no more than a legalistic evasion.  Rendition is not "for the purpose of interrogation using torture"; its purpose is to extract information

Also, not for the faint of heart is the story of Ehiopian national
Binyam Mohamed, who was arrested in Karachi in 2002, and subjected to horrific interrogation, nominally to get information concerning American citizen and suspected terrorist Jose Padilla , Bushco's poster child for domestic terrorism, who has been held in extralegal detention since 2002.

Now, the money question arises.  Is the Bush administration using evidence obtained under torture to gin up its case for war against Iran?  The New York Times reports on the evidence of Iranian complicity in the manufacture and delivery of IED's to Iraq:

 He (the President) said American assertions about the link between weapons and the (Iranian Quds)  force was based on information obtained from people, including Iranians, who have been detained in Iraq the past 60 days.  

Does that mean kidanapped Iranian nationals?  Credentialed diplomats perhaps?  Detained under what sort of conditions?  The questions multiply.

In the largest sense, are we losing our country, or is it already gone?  As noted elsewhere, I have always thought that the politcal heat from impeachment was too great for the Democratic party to bear; but I see no other way to stop the headlong national descent in savagery.

•  Thank you for encouragin' my behavior...

  Also, HT to Mark Twain (his ghost) whose "United States of Lyncherdom" inspired my title.

  by magnetics on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 11:25:16 PM PDT

  •  We are led by a "torturer in chief"......

    http://www.yaledailynews.com/...

    Cartoonist Garry Trudeau '70 said he thinks a little-known fact about President George W. Bush '68's past -- that his first mention in The New York Times occurred in 1967 when, as former president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter at Yale, Bush defended the fraternity's practice of branding its pledges with a red-hot coat hanger -- deserves more national attention.

    On Sunday, Trudeau's cartoon "Doonesbury" featured fictional character Mark Slackmeyer explaining the President's position against current anti-torture legislation by revisiting a series of 1967 Yale Daily News articles that exposed DKE's rush activities, which at the time included brandings and alleged beatings. Soon after these stories were published, the University's Inter-Fraternity Council fined the fraternity for performing "physically and mentally degrading acts," and the Times published an article in which Bush defended the brandings, comparing them to cigarette burns

    Branding "loyalty" in his frat brothers asscheeks may keep secrets, but the double edged sword is having to explain the tattoo in the prison showers.

    by Theghostofkarlafayetucker on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 01:29:57 AM PDT

    •  It is consistent with everything we know...

      ...of his character.

      by magnetics on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 12:28:13 PM PDT

•  The mysterious 72-hour tape gap

  The lawyers say Padilla was subject to 24-hour video surveillance during his entire military detention – except for 72 hours of missing tape. "What could have been done to Mr. Padilla in those seventy-two, or so, hours that the government turned off the camera when for almost four years every one of Mr. Padilla's bowel movements were videotaped?"

  http://www.csmonitor.com/...

  by oblomov on Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 04:01:25 PM PDT